http://www.wowvownow.com/gay-marriage-holland/
What happens to married gay couples when legalized gay marriage is being undone?
I’ve read some stories the last months about countries that have legalized gay marriage, but want to undo those laws.
Hopefully this will never happen, but when new governments are elected, anything can happen. I’m Dutch, I always thought we were very liberated, but even in Holland we have a small Christian political party in our government now, that wants to grant special rights to a few ordained ministers that allows them to refuse to marry gay couples. Usually things like that are just a first step.
Anybody knows what happens to couples that are already married, when such laws would be changed? When legalized marriages become illegal again? Do they remain married, or does all of a sudden their legal marriage contract fall apart?
If it’s a case of civil partnerships, it’s not overly difficult for a new government to redefine the parameters of that category.
Marriage is harder though, because of the huge weight of precedent. (Which is why it is so important to get full marriage rights for everyone.)
In theory, any government could find a way to declare marriages that were made under certain conditions to be null. (How difficult depends on intracacies of their lawing-making/amending processes.) It would probably take several years and have to get voted on a few times — this is playing out in Massachusetts right.
It’s far more likely that no further same-sex marriages would be allowed instead. Those that were already married would *probably* be allowed to remain married. Of course there are no guarantees and reactionary governments do manage to gain power.
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